NCAA Basketball Picks & Predictions

While March is still several months away, now is the perfect time for college basketball fans to really familiarize themselves with the sport’s teams. College basketball season really gets started in November, and after the Thanksgiving preseason tournaments, fans really start to get a good idea as to which teams might be contenders for that season. 

You’ll be able to place bets in most states on college basketball throughout the season, both on single-game plays and on futures plays for the NCAA tournament. In this guide, we’ll go over some of the information and strategy that you need to know so that you can maximize your chances of success throughout the winter and spring months.

2024/25 College Basketball: Season Preview and NCAA Basketball Picks

Now is the best time to really get to know college basketball, simply because of the sheer volume of games available. With West Georgia and Mercyhurst moving up to Division I this year, there are now 364 Division I college basketball teams. Most people can’t name most of these teams, but every team from Alcorn State to Youngstown State offers a chance for you to place a bet and try to bet the odds.

Obviously, the biggest names are going to attract the most attention as well as the toughest odds to beat. When teams like Kansas and Duke face off with each other, casual bettors are going to look at making plays on the spread, totals and more. That’s why these games are the toughest to bet: the sportsbooks have far more incentive to get them right.

Betting on smaller-school games can be more forgiving, as sportsbooks don’t invest as much time or money in these contests. The tradeoff, however, is these teams don’t show up on television very often. So most casual bettors don’t know a lot about them and have to do some extra research to find the right play.

When you’re betting on college basketball, most states allow you to only bet on outcomes and team-based props. Individual props are usually not permitted on college athletics, so in several states, you can’t bet on a player to get a certain number of rebounds, assists, points or anything else. You can bet on a team to go over or under its point totals, but that’s about it as far as prop wagers go.

You can also make bets on futures plays, and you’ll get some of the best possible odds now. However, you’re going to have to tie up your bankroll for several months to lock in a futures play in November, so make sure that you have the funds available if you want to go this route.

Filling out a bracket is great, but betting on the individual games and the tournament winner is the best way to make the excitement last through every game of the event. Get ready to rock this year with our basketball predictions.

Place your NCAA bets at FanDuel

NCAAB Picks: Who will win the 2025 College Basketball tournament?

So far, the Connecticut Huskies have not shown that they’re going to be immune from the weight of trying to win three straight titles. Connecticut has dominated the past two years, but it’s very hard to win three consecutive championships. Only John Wooden’s UCLA teams in the 1970s managed to win more than two in a row, and over the past 75 years, only three other teams even had a chance to pull it off. Of those, Cincinnati lost in the 1963 national title game, Duke lost in the second round in 1993 and Florida did not qualify for the tournament in 2008.

So the odds against the Huskies doing it don’t really match up to where the odds are for them at the sportsbooks. And that’s because the public really doesn’t buy into these kinds of trends. It remembers how dominant the Huskies have been for the past two seasons, and the public doesn’t like to abandon a team until it tells them they’re done. However, the Huskies’ recent performance in the Maui Invitational, which saw them lose to Memphis and Colorado and land in the seventh-place game, doesn’t inspire much confidence. Connecticut could make it happen, but it’s clear that Dan Hurley has a lot of work ahead of him to get this team to a championship level.

While Connecticut gets the most attention because of its recent performances, it’s not currently going off at the lowest number. That would be Auburn, which just succeeded where the Huskies fell short by winning the Maui Invitational. Five previous national champions got their start by winning the Maui, and the Tigers bring back a veteran group that’s a little bit sick of coming up short in March. 

The Tigers haven’t been beyond the first weekend of the tournament since 2019, something that staggers coach Bruce Pearl. Currently, Auburn goes off at +1000 to win the tournament, pretty good odds for the current favorite. It’s still a long way to go until we get to the tournament, but Auburn currently looks like a solid option if it can survive a rugged SEC.

Beyond the biggest favorites, Kansas has a lot to offer. The Jayhawks have been a disappointment in March for the past few seasons, but part of that had to do with Bill Self’s health issues keeping him from getting the most out of his athletes. The Jayhawks have a veteran squad this year and appear to be in their best shape since winning the national title in 2022. If Kansas can stay healthy, getting them at +1100 offers excellent value.

Place your NCAA bets at FanDuel

2025 NCAAB Title Contenders: Who are the top teams this season?

It’s too early to get a good read on specific teams at this point in the season. Instead, you need to look at what teams do well and how that’s likely to translate in the NCAA tournament.

First, you want a team that is used to winning. It almost goes without saying, but if a team hasn’t won six games in a row at any point in the season, it’s probably not going to win six games in a row in the NCAA tournament. The pressure is more intense and every opponent at that level is at least good enough to win its way in. So make sure to pick a team that has shown enough sustained success to win multiple games in a row.

Second, you want a team that does the key things well. Specifically, you want a team that can score points consistently and play strong defense. This is where advanced metrics can really make a difference. You want to get a sense for what kind of offense and defense a team is playing, and advanced metrics can tell you whether a team is as good as its box scores suggest. If a team has been playing the likes of Houston and Virginia, it’s not going to score as often as someone facing Alabama or Auburn.

And that’s because the styles are just different. Speed of the game can change. But offensive and defensive efficiency usually stays consistent. Those give you a more complete picture of what the team brings to the table.

Finally, be sure you’re picking matchups that make sense. So many college basketball bets are lost because someone didn’t do enough research before making their bet. If a team fouls regularly, you don’t want to pick them against a team that’s really good from the free throw line. If a team has trouble getting offensive rebounds, it might not be smart to back them against a team with a strong, tall center. Before you make your picks, make sure that the matchups you’re picking play to your team’s strengths.

2025 National Championship: Odds on the Favorites to Win it all

No matter who you take to win the national championship, you’ll get good odds on them doing so. That’s because they have to win six games without a single loss, and they’ll be doing that against some of the best teams in the nation. At the top 25 level, anyone can beat anyone, which is why you don’t want to go crazy and make too many bets.

Here are the current odds:

• Auburn +900
• Duke +1100
• Gonzaga +1200
• Houston +1500
• Kansas +1500
• Alabama +1500
• Connecticut +1700
• Iowa State +1700
• Tennessee +2000
• Kentucky +2000

odds from the fanduel website

Place your NCAA bets at FanDuel

NCAA Basketball: 2025 Final Four Predictions

It’s too early to make a Final Four bet, because you have no idea what each region is going to look like. These bets should come available around January or February, when teams start to separate themselves and get an idea of where they might go in the first few rounds. 

Kentucky might be a good value play to make a run to the Final Four, if it can land in the Midwest Regional. The Wildcats aren’t allowed to play in Lexington for the first two rounds and would have to go to Cleveland or Milwaukee. But if they get through those two games, the next two rounds would be in Indianapolis, just three hours from Kentucky’s campus. With the Wildcats having plenty of fans in neighboring Indiana, those games could become virtual home games for Big Blue Nation.

Betting on conference champions is harder, but can be highly rewarding. Before you bet on a conference champion, however, make sure you know which kind of conference champion you’re betting on. In college basketball, most conferences have a regular-season champion and a tournament champion. The regular season champion is the team who wins the most games in the conference during the season. It’s played out from December to the first week of March, and usually consists of 16 to 20 games.

The conference tournament is a week-long event where the teams in a conference play in a bracketed tournament with one winner. It’s held just before the NCAA tournament, and it carries an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament if a team hasn’t played well enough to get one otherwise. As such, it’s harder to predict because weird things can happen when a team gets hot.

Odds for the 2025 Final Four teams

• Auburn +175
• Duke +220
• Gonzaga +230
• Alabama +290
• Kansas +310
• Houston +310
• Connecticut +340
• Iowa State +340
• Tennessee +420
• Kentucky +420
• Cincinnati +750
• North Carolina +950
• St. John's +950
• Marquette +950
• Arizona +1000

Odds provided by FanDuel.

Place your NCAA bets at FanDuel

March Madness Predictions: How to Make Reliable NCAA Basketball Picks

If you’re looking to place bets on March Madness, you need to know what you’re betting. In some states, that’s tricky, because college sports come with restrictions that don’t exist in professional sports.

For example, in the pros, if you want to bet on the Indiana Pacers, you’ll see every starter’s points, rebounds, assists, blocks and more stats as options for prop betting. If you want to bet on Purdue, none of that will be there. Many states do not allow any prop bets on college games. Your only prop betting option is team totals, because that’s not an individual play. Some states also don’t allow you to bet on teams in that state. In New Jersey, for example, no bets are allowed on in-state college teams. When Princeton, Saint Peter’s and Fairleigh Dickinson captured the imagination of the nation 2022 and 2023, bettors in their home state were out of luck, because no bets were offered on any of their games.

However, outside of that, the standard basketball bets of spreads, totals and betting by half (college basketball is played by halves, not quarters, so quarters betting isn’t a thing) will be available. You can place bets on futures before or after the field is announced on March 17th. The first games will take place on March 19th, and the national championship game takes place on April 8th. You’ll have 67 games available to bet over a three-week span, so you’ll want to know the teams as well as possible.

Place your NCAA bets at DraftKings

How to Bet on College Basketball

If you’re looking to place bets on college basketball this season, you need to know what you’re betting. Over the past few years, some states have moved to add restrictions to college sports that don’t exist in professional sports. These are designed to prevent the possibility of players being influenced by nefarious bettors.

For example, in the pros, there aren’t any restrictions on your bets. If you want to bet on the Memphis Grizzlies, you’ll see each player’s stats and information to bet on just about any statistic happening. When betting on the Tennessee Volunteers, you won’t see prop plays in most states. You can bet on the Vols to score a certain number of points in the first half, or for the entire game, but individual stats won’t be available to you.  

In other states, you can’t bet on a college game that involves an in-state team. New Jersey is infamous for this: it doesn’t allow any bets on teams that call the Garden State home. Any other college game is fair game in New Jersey, but you’ll never be able to bet on Rutgers, Seton Hall or Saint Peter’s in the state. 

Outside of that, the standard basketball bets of spreads, totals and betting by half are available. In men’s college basketball, the game is divided into halves, while women’s games are divided into quarters. If women’s college basketball betting is offered, you’ll be able to bet on individual quarter spreads and totals.

Place your NCAA bets at DraftKings

College Basketball Betting Tips for Beginner Bettors

Now’s a great time to bet on college basketball and get yourself prepared for later in the year. If you start betting on college basketball in December and January, you’ll give yourself a much better base of information for when the games really matter most in March. If you're a basketball guru, you'll find lots of info on our page dedicated to NBA picks and predictions!

Tip #1: Bet the Teams You Know Well

With 364 men’s teams and 362 women’s teams, there are a ton of options for betting each day during the college basketball season. That means it’s easy for the sportsbooks to get overwhelmed, and it’s even easier for you to get overwhelmed. The best strategy is to find teams you watch regularly and learn what they do well. Betting the same teams over and over will help you learn how to best bet their games.

Tip #2: Know The Trends

If a team isn’t playing well at the moment, now might not be the time to back them. Trends can be a sign that something is wrong with the team’s chemistry at the moment, or that there’s an issue with a star player. Remember, college basketball is played by 18 to 22-year-olds, and players at that age can have mental ebbs and flows that can’t be explained by numbers alone. Knowing the trends can help you spot these areas.

Place your NCAA bets at FanDuel

Tip #3: Check Strengths And Weaknesses

Knowing how a team likes to play can give you a sense of how it will play. For example, a team like Connecticut loves to swarm its opponents with stiff defense and force them to use the entire shot clock when they have the ball. That, in turn, keeps their scores down and puts unders in play...unless they face a team that can shoot from outside. Knowing each team’s strengths and potential counters makes a big difference.

Tip #4: Watch Smaller Schools

These days, every game is televised somewhere. Small schools can be tough for sportsbooks, because they aren’t going to invest a lot of time or money in games that won’t get attention. But you can get an advantage by getting to know the teams in a small league well. If you live in a league’s geographical footprint, you might see a lot of those teams. That gives you an advantage, because you can learn exactly how they play better than the sportsbooks do.

Tip #5: Look At the Coaches

Coaches make a big difference in how they manage games. Knowing how a coach is likely to play out the endgame and what he’ll emphasize gives you the best chance to make the right selection.

Place your NCAA bets at DraftKings

What not to do for College Basketball Predictions

The worst thing you can do is overlook key information. Giving yourself as much knowledge as possible gives you the best chance to win your bet, so make sure to take a hard look at relevant information. Here are a few things you really don’t want to do.

• Bet heavily without looking at injuries: Injuries change how a team plays. If a key player is missing, think twice before you bet on that team to do anything.
• Forget the crowd: Teams playing at home get the crowd on their side. Some teams are much better at home and pull off key wins on their home floor. If you hear the phrase “home-court hero”, be careful betting against them on their home floor.
• Blindly bet favorites: Favorites don’t always win. Top-ranked teams go down to lesser ones all the time. Don’t just back the team ranked higher without thinking about it.
• Betting teams you don’t know: Uninformed decisions can come back to burn you. Make sure you know what a team likes to do and what its weaknesses are before you bet.
• Packing a parlay: Parlay bets are hard. Don’t chase your losses by going big on a parlay; you’ll usually only make things worse.
• Not comparing odds: Comparing sportsbooks makes a big difference. -120 vs. -110 might not seem like a big change, but it really adds up over time. Make sure to get the right number whenever you play a bet.

Stats to consider for College Basketball Predictions

Stats are one of your best allies when it comes to NCAA Basketball. Knowing who does what thing well can give you an idea of how each team wants the game to go. Here are a few key stat leaders to keep in mind.

• Overall point average:  Zach Edey, Purdue, 23.7
• Three-point effectiveness per team: Koby Brea, Dayton, 49.1%
• Effectiveness in free throws by team: Joseph Girard, Clemson, 95.0%
• Average rebounds per game: Enrique Freeman, Akron, 12.8
• Average assists per game: Tyler Kolek, Marquette, 7.6
• Average blocks per game: Isaiah Cozart, Eastern Kentucky, 3.9
• Average steals per game: Arturo Dean, Florida International, 3.4
• Team with highest scoring average: Alabama, 91.5
• Team with the highest effectiveness in three-pointers: Kentucky, 40.7%
• Team with the highest free throw effectiveness: Villanova, 81.6%
• Team with the most rebounds per game: Florida, 43.7
• Team with the most assists per game: Kansas, 19.5
• Team with the most blocks per game: Kentucky, 6.8
• Team with the most fouls per game: Alabama, 19.3

Place your NCAA bets at DraftKings

Conclusion: How to Get Your College Basketball Predictions Right?

Trusting your process and information is by far the smartest thing that you can do when betting on college basketball. Not every bet will go your way, but knowing the teams well and making smart wagers will give you the best chance to maximize your wins. 

Make sure to stay calm and stick to your strategies, regardless of your results. You don’t want to bet too big on any one game, and you don’t want to change things up drastically off one bad night. Consistency is the key to winning at sports betting and finding those lesser-known winners.

If you need information, we’ve got you covered with some of the deepest information in the industry. Our experts use analytics, statistics and their own insights to provide you with free picks for each game in the tournament. We know where to find next-gen statistics that tell you things about how fast a team likes to play, what its strengths and weaknesses are and what it’s most likely to do against a given opponent. When you check out our free website, you can trust you’re getting the best possible information, which will give you the best chance to nail your college basketball bets. 

With the right information, you’ll be ready to make smart plays and set yourself up to really enjoy the college basketball season leading up to March Madness.

Activate your bonus now!

Our current NCAA predictions

There are no previews at the moment for this competition

NCAAB: Best Odds

Odds are not yet available for this competition.

All images provided by IMAGO